-LRB- CNN -RRB- Syria is a Hell on Earth that is expanding in plain sight .

The death toll there has doubled in a year 's time , if an opposition group is right .

Since civil war broke out there , 310,000 people have been killed , the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday . A year earlier , SOHR 's tally stood at 162,402 . And the year before , the United Nations put the death toll at 70,000 .

Violence has plunged well over half of all Syrians into such destitution that they are in dire need of survival aid , the United Nations says , as food rations are being cut for lack of donations .

Numbers alone ca n't convey the immeasurable anguish of millions , but maybe it can remind the rest of us of the magnitude of the world 's currently greatest tragedy .

The number of years since perpetual bloodshed began , since dictator Bashar al-Assad 's security forces fired on crowds of demonstrators and armed militant groups rose up against him in March 2011 .

Percentage of the Syrian population killed . It would be like killing 3 to 4 million Americans . The range comes from the SOHR 's death toll of 310,000 and a recent lower estimate by the U.N. of at least 220,000 dead .

The number of Syrians in need of immediate life-saving aid , according to the U.N. That 's the population of Moscow .

Syrians driven from their homes , the U.N. says . Imagine the entire Boston metropolitan area emptied out .

Syrians who have fled as refugees to neighboring countries , creating humanitarian and economic hardship across Syria 's borders . Turkey has taken in 1.7 million , Lebanon 1.2 million , Jordan 625,000 , and Iraq 245,000 .

The reduction in the size of food rations the World Food Programme says it has been forced to make due to a lack of donations . That means people receiving aid will get only 60 % of the daily nutrition they need .

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More people have been displaced than live in Moscow ; more people lost their homes than live in greater Boston

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The WFP has cut food ration sizes by 30 % for lack of donations